


crown the king (with bloody flowers)

by WhirlyBird70



Category: One Piece
Genre: Drabble Series, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flowers, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, Sickness, but its platonic - Freeform, haha another drabble series yes i am predictable no i will not stop, im tagging pov characters only btw, the sea hates devil fruit users but Luffy loves the sea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 16,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26242642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70
Summary: Luffy looks to the sea and chokes on his own love, and there isnothing, nothing anyone can do to stop him.Only watch, as the Future Pirate King stands tall amidst bloody flowers.-Or: A hanahaki au, in which Luffy is in love with the sea but the seahatesdevil fruit users. And sometimes, there are no exceptions.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy & Portgas D. Ace & Sabo, Monkey D. Luffy & The Ocean
Comments: 296
Kudos: 665





	1. morning glories - the beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Корона Короля (с кровавыми цветами)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26265511) by [Переводчик_сдох (Lena013)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lena013/pseuds/%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D1%81%D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%85)



Luffy has always loved the sea.

(He always will.)

It sang to him, whispered in his ear, loved him back in the way only the sea could, and it made Luffy feel _complete._

Whole.

Not so lonely anymore.

Seashells and seaweed, pretty crabs and ocean jewels, beautiful horizons and stories from the depths were his gifts from this unknowing force, and, seven, Luffy did not question it.

Only accepted the sea and all of its love.

Then -

Then Shanks sails into port waving the black flag of freedom above his head.

Then Shanks sails into port, bearing gifts like the sea, but the sea isn’t mad, no because Shanks is it’s a gift to Luffy, a _dream_.

Then Shank sails into port bearing a dark treasure in his hull, and nothing is the same 

When Luffy bites into the Gum Gum Fruit, flowers _bloom_ in his lungs, swallowing him whole. He coughs up petals, a rainbow of color, feels them scratch against his throat never ending and never leaving.

Morning glories, scattering across the floor of the bar, white and blood-spotted. An omen. A threat.

(A fate.)

Shanks panics when Luffy coughs up those flowers, panics when the sea gets rougher and tears well up in Luffy’s eyes, panics when blood – so much blood already – drips drips drips onto the ground.

 _Hanahaki,_ Shanks whispers, just like the legends, and it’s a guillotine over Luffy’s neck.

They – the villagers, the pirates, the bandits - wonder who this child could love so completely and not be loved back. Luffy is loved, loved by everyone in this village, and by Garp across the sea and by an unknown father who Luffy might not get to know. This boy has so much love, draws people to him like a flame, is the sun in a child’s body. Who could Luffy choose to love not love him back?

They wonder and beg on their knees for Luffy to tell them, but Luffy doesn’t.

Only stares at the sea, and let's white and red petals fall from his mouth.

(The sea _hates_ devil fruit users. And sometimes, there are no exceptions to the rule.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morning Glories: small flowers that bloom in the morning and die in the evening. Can mean: Unrequited love, Mortality of life, and Love that is in vain. Can be used to vulcanize rubber. 
> 
> ;)
> 
> anyway, me, a week ago: why use hanahaki for romance when i can just make everything hurt
> 
> i tortured discord with this and now YOU all get hanahaki au! i have many drabbles already for this and will be posting them 1 each day, or around that time frame. Maybe every other day. Schools startin back up fellas 😔
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this au! its very fun and im loving playing around with it! If you spot any mistakes, please let me know. 
> 
> Thanks for reading <3!!!!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	2. sea pinks - zoro

Zoro asks the boy in dinghy who he loves so much so that the petals that fall from his mouth are tipped in red.

Luffy laughs, and carries on, a trail of bright sea pink blossoms drifting in the sea behind him.

Zoro thinks he will never know, and settles back, catching Luffy when a coughing fit sends him nearly to the ground, faltering in his footsteps.

(Everything is worse after Luffy falls in the water. He coughs more, stumbles more, sleeps more, its so obvious Zoro notices after two and a half days of being with him. The people they meet say its just water in the lungs, stirring up those plants… but Zoro knows why plants grow, and if Luffy is like the sun incarnate then who is to say the saltwater hatred does not act as a nurturer?

Sun and water make life, after all.

Even now, Zoro knows that Luffy has a way of turning the world on its head. Its no surprise he turns life into flowery death.)

He was like this when he wandered into that dusty courtyard. Impossibly strong, as strong as Zoro, stronger even, yet halting and falling backwards into Zoro’s or Coby’s arms, flowers coming out like words. The red of his vest was to cover the blood that spilled from his lips when he laughed too long.

Luffy still laughed.

_Shishishi!_ like petals in the waves.

(He had stolen Zoro in that courtyard, along with his swords and his loyalty. There was an oath sworn between bloody breaths, Zoro swearing death to the man who would dare stand in the way of his dreams.

He knows he won’t have to kill Luffy.

Luffy’s already dying.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this one was originally shorter but i added a bit more because a couple sentences were really confusing on their own. don't know how exactly it turned out but i hope you enjoy!
> 
> Sea Pinks - Also called sea thrifts, they are a coastal flower known to rot in the center and die without proper care, and so have a reputation for being short lived. Can mean 'vindictive' or 'sympathy'.
> 
> thank you for reading! <33!  
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	3. Milk Vetch - Nami

Nami did not realize what the boy had, at first, until they are in the dinghy and away from Buggy, until Luffy laughs, until she shakes him and flowers pour out of his mouth like a waterfall. 

Milk vetch’s, this time, mixed with sunflowers. She wonders how they even fit in his mouth.

Luffy laughs at her, this small child with bloody lips _laughing_ at her shocked face, and she hits the fourteen-year-old over the head.

“What the fuck, kid.” She says, and Luffy keeps laughing. “What the fuck.”

(He still laughs, but she’ll be the one to rub his back when he can’t stop coughing, when he looks too sad at the sea, and she’ll be the one to bring him tangerine slices far later, to give some fruit in his mouth that he won’t cough up later.

She worries, sometimes, about who could possibly hate _Luffy.)_

 _Hanahaki,_ she wonders, when Luffy rests his head on her shoulders with Arlong’s blood on his knuckles. _Of course, the only thing that could bring her captain –_ her captain, isn’t that wonderful, she’s so _happy_ when she says that word – _bring her captain down, is her captain himself._

She loves her captain, her captain who calls her _his_ and doesn’t make her feel horrible when he does. He doesn’t have long out on these seas, because of his own heart, and that means he doesn’t have long to reach his dream.

Nami’s his navigator, the best navigator on any sea.

She will wrangle the winds to her command to get him to the end of this sea before his time runs out.

This she swears, even as she curses Luffy out and bans him from the kitchen, and is the only voice of reason on this ship. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Milk Vetch: Can mean 'your presence softens my pains'  
> Sunflower: false riches, haughtiness, adoration
> 
> There is now a Russian translation for this fic, thanks to Lena013!! Go check it out!
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> \- Whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	4. Daffodils - Usopp

Usopp knows the tales - long lost lovers, lovers torn apart, lovers who had hatred grow in their hearts - knows it all and recites it by spirit to his followers.

_(Did you hear how the king choked on gold roses? Did you know that flowers grow because no one loved the earth back? Did you know?)_

Still, he’d never think he see the effects of hanahaki - unrequited love, deep in the soul, felt so intensely that the heart could not help but grow flowers to gain favor - in real life.

(The doctors said his mother died only of a coughing fit, no flowers in her lungs or vines in her veins. Usopp found white and yellow daffodils by the door and never knew his father, so he can’t really say if the doctors were right or not.)

(Usopp always believed the lies people told him when he was a kid. Now, he tells them. Now, he knows the lies the doctor said.)

Luffy, knocking down enemies with only a punch, leaves flowers in his wake. Usopp doesn’t get it, and prays he never will, because Luffy is smaller and younger than he is and so _vibrant_ despite the living plant in his chest. He loves, fiercely, and Usopp already loves him for it.

He invites Usopp out to sea, y’know.

“There’s adventure waiting!” Luffy says, eyes bright, “We can’t miss it! So get on already!”

Usopp gets on, starting the adventure of a lifetime, and tries not to wonder why Luffy is in such a rush to get out to sea.

(Later, he sees him sitting down for an hour, after the floor is covered in daffodils and water willows and blood, and thinks he knows.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daffodils: also called narcissus, these small flowers can mean 'self love,' 'unrequited love', 'deceitful hopes' 'new beginnings' and 'regard'. They are poisonous, if cooked or eaten, and white daffodils are often called grave flowers.
> 
> Water willows: can mean freedom, and as the name implies, grow by or in the water. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	5. saltwater - sanji

Sanji, medically, cannot get Hanahaki. Something about his bastard ex-father and his schemes, Sanji wasn’t really paying attention. All he knows is that while he doesn’t have anything the rest of his shitty ex-siblings have, he does definitely have immunity. He would have gotten it by now if he didn’t - so many beautiful ladies!

(That’s not true. It wouldn’t have been the ladies that stole his heart, not now and not before. Sanji loved his father in the way all children do. Judge didn’t love him back. Not. One. Bit.)

Still, he knows the best way to treat hanahaki, calm it, stifle the effects of mythic flower growing in the lungs. A spice here, lots of salt there, some of this and that - a brew to be slurped down and refilled for as long as it takes. Any good chef knows nutritional health, knows exactly what people need to _eat._ Sanji is among the best. Of course, he knows.

The minute the boy walks through the door - throws a cannonball through it, really, - Sanji serves him a brew and some meat and ignores the fact that the boy is getting bloody flower petals over the dirty dishes. They’ll be cleaned by someone else later.

Instead - instead he serves the meal and watches the boy defeat a tyrant while choking on his own love, and wonders what brought a dying kid out to sea.

(In truth, the All Blue stole Sanji’s heart, hidden out there in the world, a dream, a hope, a love.

Sanji doesn’t have the devil’s fruit in his veins though.

Sanji is free.

And the ocean loves him _back._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saltwater - it is rare that flowers will grow in saltwater, as the amount of sodium typically dehydrates plants and kills them. 
> 
> There are exceptions, of course, but you all know this fic ;DD
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!
> 
> -whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	6. camellias - vivi

Vivi loves this crew, this straw hatted crew.

They are so _joyous,_ in every moment, even when they are facing down enemies. It’s a game to them, but it’s a game they can win.

She would be worried, if not for the way Nami can reign in a storm with one weapon or they way Zoro can cut down an entire town. They are stronger than anyone Vivi knows, strong enough to defeat warlord and tyrants and maybe even gods someday.

And - more than anything else - they _care_.

Care for each other, care for this ship, care for Vivi and her kingdom and her plea, and care for _Luffy._

_Luffy,_ who laughs and wipes blood away from his lips but who still has red stuck to his teeth and camellia petals in his mouth, _Luffy,_ who loves so infinitely he found the one person who could not love him back, _Luffy -_

_Luffy,_ who looks to the ocean and coughs and coughs and _coughs_.

He’s fourteen, younger than her, younger than most of this crew and already fading, but he brings them all along anyway.

She’ll make the adventure good for him, they all will.

(She watches, sometimes, as Nami rubs Luffy’s back and gives him tangerines, as Sanji sits and helps Luffy drink warm broths and sweet liquids when he’s coughed for far too long, as Usopp will tell him a story and let Luffy lean tiredly against his shoulder, and not budge when blood goes _drip, drip, drip_ onto Merry’s decks. She’ll watch as Zoro will remain so close to the railing when Luffy is fishing, and not let him fall, a protective guard dog, watching out for evil ocean sprays. She will watch as they will let Luffy sleep in, if he’s been up at night coughing, and how Luffy always has two pairs of watchful eyes on him when he’s at the helm.

She watches herself, then, brushing petals off the deck, proof of Luffy’s over whelming love for the sea, and watches herself curse the waves at night, when Luffy played in the ocean that day on some stranger’s shore and had to be carried back to the Merry.

Vivi loves the ocean, too, you know. All who sail the seas do, in some manner. She can’t ask Luffy to stop loving the blue waters. But she can curse the ocean to stop hating her _captain.)_

Luffy pulls her forward, to an Island of dinosaurs, and Vivi knows she would follow him anywhere, if he asked.

(He wouldn’t, is the thing, and it makes her love him that much more.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Camellia- pink, red, or white flowers that can mean 'my destiny is in your hands' or 'unpretending excellence'. Also, traditionally are used in herbal remedies as part of a pain reliever. 
> 
> I love vivi guys. so much. 
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! <3
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	7. globe amaranth - chopper

Chopper is a reindeer, and reindeer never really belonged to the sea anyway. It doesn’t bother him, being hated by the sea, because he never really loved it in the first place.

It was always an escape, a distant destination, a flag over his head.

Not a love - not like he loved the doctor, or doctrine, or his new crew. No, not a love at all.

In fact, as he takes his captain into the cabin for his first checkup, it’s becoming more like a _hate_ instead.

(Chopper never took an oath never to hurt anybody. Doctrine liked using his antlers as anesthesia too much for that, and Chopper wanted to be a pirate someday.

Pirates fought. Pirates _hurt_ people, maliciously or otherwise.

But never, never did Chopper think he might be drawn to hatred for someone other than Wapol _.)_

Luffy’s chest flutters weakly beneath his hooves, heart beat skipping in a way that’s only possible, only able to keep him alive, because Chopper’s captain is made of rubber. There’s blood on his lips constantly and a persistent cough echoing after his laughter. He stumbles, sometimes, and gets fatigued at odd times, a shadow of death following in every footstep.

Chopper hates that he’s gotten used to it already.

His new captain is younger than he is, small and tiny, and it’s so _weird_ to see someone with so much authority be so young. Still - none of the crew questions his leadership.

(What could Luffy – the man who saved Chopper, the man who saved Drum, the man who waved a flag not his own but with the same fierceness in his eyes, the man who will be **_King of the Pirates_** \- be but captain?)

Luffy smiles at him, then, again, when Chopper hesitates far too long on his chest and that stifling, growing feeling hiding within it.

(He’s only dealt with Hanahaki once before, a persistent case that is. Usually the love fades with the flowers and the realization that their love does not love them back. This case was different, an old woman who refused to stop loving her child that scorned her and burned her house down in the depths of winter.

She died, the night Doctrine and Chopper found her, her deathbed covered in beautiful immortal globe amaranths.

Chopper will burn the world before he lets that happen to his captain.)

“Chopper?” Luffy prompts, bright eyed and curious.

“Ah, sorry Luffy!” Chopper says and tries to move on to the rest of his examination when Luffy grabs his hands.

(They’re warm. His captain isn’t dead yet.)

“Chopper,” He says, like a king to his most loyal knight. “It’s okay.”

The tears well up in Chopper’s eyes anyway. “But -“

_You’ll die - maybe in the next three years, if we’re not careful, the next five if we’re lucky. You’ll die and I just met you, and that too short a time to love you as my captain, my friend, my savior -_

“It’s okay.” Luffy says again, forcefully, that smile never leaving his face. “That’s why I set out, y’know. So I could be Pirate King! I had to set out now, I couldn’t later. If I die trying on the path to my dream, then everything’s okay. That’s what being a pirate is - chasing your dream! _Shishishi!”_

 _King or dead,_ echoes in Chopper’s brain. _King or dead._

Still.

Chopper doesn’t say any more about it, only finishes his examination, giving Luffy a set of drinks to ask from Sanji - juices and a smoothie with every meal, stuff Luffy’s metabolism will devour in an instant - and strict directions to get Chopper if he falls in the ocean, then sends him on his way.

When Luffy bounces out the door, Chopper’s dream has shifted, becoming laser focused and direct.

Chopper is going to cure every illness in the world.

Hanahaki will be the first, and he will do it _soon._

(The Pirate King can’t die before his coronation, after all, no matter how much the ocean _hates_ him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Globe Amaranths - immortality, unfading love. A man will only die when he is forgotten, after all. 
> 
> (It's a good thing Luffy is a face to remember.)
> 
> hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	8. roses and plum flowers - ace

Ace didn’t expect to see Luffy in Alabasta - didn’t expect to see him at _all,_ because Luffy was supposed to be at home at Dawn for the next three years.

Instead, a newspaper flutters down from a News Coo that morning, heralding the bounty of _Monkey D. Luffy_ , and Ace burst into flames.

(Ace used to love the Sea - really, he did. It wasn’t a love like Luffy’s but it was a love all the same, and looking back, maybe it was _freedom_ he loved more than anything else. The chance for an answer, hanging over the horizon.

Then, he met Luffy, who choked on his own breath and smiled so brightly at the thing that hated him, and Ace found he really didn’t care that much for the sea after all.

Because Ace? Ace didn’t love much. He loved Luffy, and Sabo, and his mother, and Makino and though he would never admit it, Gramps and the bandits too. The rest of the world _hated_ him and yet - no flowers ever bloomed in his lungs.

Ace was always loved _back._ Luffy wasn’t.

And it _hurt.)_

Deuce had to calm him down, slap him over the head, yell at him, before Ace started making any sense again. When he did, they set out for the next island on the log pose _immediately._

They couldn’t go back. Ace was the captain, the star rookie (though Luffy had a starter bounty higher than him what the fuck did he _do),_ and he would not let his crew’s dreams die just because Luffy was an idiot.

So they went forward and arrived in Alabasta after being swept off course by a storm so horrific even the Grand Line residents of the _Spades_ were in awe of it.

(Privately, later, Ace remembers a secret about a dragon, and knows it wasn’t really a storm at all.

Or at least, not one made of cloud and thunder, but flesh and bone and the letter _D.)_

In Alabasta, the same day he saw the wanted poster with rage still coursing through his veins at the _stupidity_ of his little brother, Ace sees Luffy, unexpectedly, and out of the blue.

Laughing, bright and joyous, and choking in the same breath.

Just the same as when Ace left Dawn, with maybe fuller cheeks and more seaswept hair. Fourteen, and so _stupid._

Ace saves him from the Marine, and doesn’t quite shake him in the next moment but its a close thing.

“Luffy!” Ace growls.

“Ace!” Luffy cheers.

And well, that is that before Ace slings Luffy over his shoulder as a volley of bullets follow in their wake.

“What the _hell_ are you doing out here, you idiot? Seventeen! We promised!”

“ _Shishishi_!” Luffy laughs, a few bright orange petals drifting out from the hand covering his mouth. “I couldn’t wait!”

Ace snorts at that. “It’s been five _months_ Luffy. Did you even set off at your birthday?”

“Yep! Snuck out too! I stole Old Man Johnson’s boat, _shishishi_!”

(Ace remembers Garp walking up to the bandit hut with whining brat with blood on his cheek. _Luffy,_ he had introduced the kid to Dadan. _Take care of him for me! Keep him away from the water._

The rest of them had thought it was because of his devil fruit. It wasn’t till Makino visited and explained Luffy’s love, the way he looked out to the horizon and its foamy waters, that they understood.

They didn’t like to let him out after that.

Why accelerate his death, after all.)

Ace snorts again, a familiar smile creeping its way across his face at his brother’s antics. “Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Do you even have a crew?” It’s a good question to ask. Luffy is nothing but a miracle worker, even as blood drips from the petals in his mouth. He would be able to make it too the Grand Line on sheer luck, but…

“Of course!” Luffy knows the importance of a good crew. “And a ship! And a duck! And a princess and - “

Ace finally _laughs,_ fullheartedly, at his little brother, because Luffy isn’t dying as he thought, isn’t rushing out to sea in a panic because the last sets of Hanahaki are setting in and -

Maybe the sea might be killing his little brother a little bit more every time he touches sea stone or dips his toes in saltwater but -

Luffy is _alive._ And both of them will live without regrets.

If Luffy doesn’t regret setting out to sea and letting flowers rot in his chest like an omen of death, then Ace cannot regret it either.

Ace rarely loves, but he has always been loved back.

Luffy loves so _much_ yet it kills him, day by day.

Ace holds his brother in his arms (for the last time? He hopes not) and hands him his vivre card.

“If you need to find me,” he says, “We’ll meet at the pirate’s summit!”

The top - when both of them are big names with bigger bounties, sometime in the future.

Luffy broke one promise to Ace and left early.

Ace will make sure he doesn’t _die_ before he breaks another.

( _Don’t be stupid,_ Ace had told Luffy on that cliffside so long ago. _I won’t die. Promise._

Luffy didn’t promise him back, but he said he would be King.

Ace ignores the part about _or die trying_ , and clings to the hope that Luffy will _live.)_

He leaves Alabasta with bloody roses and plum tree flowers and sand crushed underneath his shoes.

He doesn’t talk about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roses (in general): Love, beauty, worthiness
> 
> Plum Tree Flowers: 'keep your promises'
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	9. hana - robin

Robin’s made of flowers, though she has no love in her heart except for the history of the world. They do not choke her longs but rather stretch out and out and out, wreathing her body in beautiful limbs of mimicry.

She has the Hana Hana Fruit, has eyes and arms and legs _blooming_ like flowers. Petals blossom in their wake, and people see the flowers in her path from the eye in the back of her head and think _cursed._

It’s useful for pity, sometimes. So few people know what Hanahaki looks like, that Robin could get away with any trick in the book for a place to rest her head for the night.

Those times are over, now, if only because she turns to bloody hands rather than bloody petals, but she knows the legends still.

 _Hanahaki_ , originating first in the latter half of the Grand Line, from an island now under the waves. Drowned, by the people who first loved it and were cursed. Still - the flowers _bloomed._

Life-stealing blossoms, some called them, lily carnations, others. The flowers of breath and life and love.

Robin could recite the origins for days, how so many suffered at first by the loves they didn’t know, how the language shifted over time, how cases dwindled and rose and fell into legend.

She could.

But there’s no one to listen, until she meets him on an island of death and sees his _truth_ underneath falling stone.

Monkey D. Luffy is living history, from the D. In his name to the sunny, blood stained smile on his lips. The flowers he leaves behind are a myriad of colors, nothing like Robins, and she is a fool for thinking she could have ever faked this desperate, desperate love.

She meets his truth under crumbling rumble, when he defeats a tyrant made of sand and damns her life in the same breath.

Damns it, by saving her while he coughs out blood and sand and petals.

(Her second sight of him before she learned his truth was when crocodile sent a hook straight through him, and out came blood and water and vines. In the sand pit they were still there, and if not for the sandstorms you could track his path across the ocean.

She wonders if the poison in his lungs killed the plants in there, just a bit.

Then again, they are born of ocean hate so she doubts they will go away _that_ easy.)

She joins his crew then, afterwards, and watches as his truth - his curse, he desperate plea for love, slowly kills him.

(His truth is this - He will not stop even for the flowers in his lungs, even as every sea breath feels like needles, even as he looks to the endless horizon. His truth is this - Luffy knows hate, and Luffy knows love, and can’t tell the difference between the two when it comes to his own part.

His truth, his history, so small compared to hers only 14 years, hurts her, in a way she didn’t expect.)

She tells him she wants to live as the world burns around her, and wonders as Luffy destroys himself to save her and everyone else again, if he’s so reckless because he wants something else to take him before the Ocean’s hatred does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmmmmm so if u follow my tumblr u know i wasnt really happy with this chapter and decided t rewrite it, but anyway.   
> failed at that, this is the og, robin will just have a second chapter later. i hope you enjoyed this one anyway!
> 
> hana - flower in japanese (I think) 
> 
> cheated with this one lol, but im saving lily carnations for something else. ;)))
> 
> thank you for reading <3!!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	10. osiers - franky

Franky saw the pirate king once, in the distance.

It was a quiet thing, a hidden moment that he probably wasn’t supposed to see.

He had been ten, maybe, or younger - cast off by his parents last month, ex-parents really - and he _hated_ pirates then.

Like his ex-parents.

 _Ugh_.

But Gold Roger… he wasn’t the pirate king yet, not when Franky saw him, but he was - without a doubt - a _pirate._

The captain’s coat and loud laugh, the joyous grin and billowing shirt, the crew and the magnificent ship being built behind him - Franky could not help but be in awe.

(Roger was a living legend before his title even made its way onto the newspapers, and Franky was not one, not yet. He would be, in a quarter century or so, but not then.

Then, Franky, was small, and Roger was like the sea walking.)

He followed Roger for a bit as the man explored Scrap Isle, watching as Roger’s first mate watched Roger watch the sea.

It was odd, seeing a pirate on land, but it was fun, in a way. Like a secret, like something Franky shouldn’t be allowed to see. Fun.

Until the future king of the pirates started _choking_ on white daisies, and nearly collapsed there in the street.

Franky knew the stories, and he knew the truth, all those years later, when the Pirate King started an era and died in the same lack of breath.

The Pirate King died because of two blades and the force of the government, but only because the Hanahaki didn’t get him first.

Franky has always wondered who did not love the Pirate King Back.

Looking at Luffy, sitting on Franky’s shoulder ever so slightly breathless, a single petal stuck to his cheek as he stares out at the horizon, Franky thinks he knows.

(Franky can fix anything but he can’t fix this. Only give Luffy plenty of opportunities to hide in his workshop when everyone else’s worrying gets too much, and he just needs to cough and cough and cough before falling asleep behind Franky’s back.

He keeps a blanket down there, now, and some juice in the Cola Fridge, just in case Luffy needs something to drink while he’s resting. A broom rests in the corner, ready to sweep up osiers and ash mountains once Franky’s captain’s eyes close in restless sleep at last.

Franky can’t fix this, can’t fix Luffy’s love, not that he thinks he could ever want to, but he can provide shelter.

It’s what a shipwright does, after all - and Franky is _Luffy’s_ shipwright, no matter how many petals he has to brush out of his work space.

He’ll be the shelter for the storm.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> osier - specifically red dogwood osiers, are small, white flowers with a star like shape. meaning 'frankness'
> 
> ash mountain flowers - specifically korean ash mountain flowers, also small and white, meaning 'you are safe with me'
> 
> daisies - meaning, 'innocence, loyal love, **I'll never tell** , purity, beauty'
> 
> -
> 
> i know so much flower facts now guys its insane. anyway, dad franky for all your needs. 
> 
> thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed this story!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	11. lily - brook

There is a question rolling of Luffy’s lips that Brook perhaps should have expected. Brook is bones after all, old bones twice lived, and his Captain’s sunshine smile has splashes of red on it when he looks to the horizon.

Yes, it should not have been a surprise. Still, who would not be surprised when your captain, young and bold and bright, asks -

“Brook? What’s it like to die?”

It’s like Brook’s heart stops beating for the second time when he hears that phrase - that damned _question_.

It’s them, alone, Luffy on the figurehead and Brook behind him, the ever watchful Zoro making sure Luffy did not drown for long, resting a short ways away. It makes sense that Luffy would ask him here, when the sun is setting into the next life.

Brook doesn’t know what to say, only hums a gentle melody, a sailor’s resting song. Luffy shifts his head just so, a single white lily falling from his lips, and a skeletal mouth moves without its soul’s say so.

“I suppose, it is a little bit like coming home.” He says, soft and simple and wondrous, trying to recall the brief moments before his devil fruit stole him back from paradise. “A welcoming… different for every person.”

A soft sigh, and Brook can’t tell if it’s from him or his captain. He’s never talked about death, before, not like this and not with anyone living. What experiences he gets from this crew!

(He wishes, just a bit, that he didn’t have to.)

“I heard a melody there,” And Brook’s soft humming in-between words, the strings stirred into harmony on his violin - it all changes, just a bit, to the grasping lullaby Brook heard something like death sing to him once. “It was beautiful.”

The waves crash softly against the bow of the ship.

“It’s different for everyone?” Luffy asks, just as soft.

“Mhmm. Music is my treasure, the songs I shared with my old crew and that I now share here. Not everyone values it as I do - so why would it be that way afterwards for them? Why would their treasures not await them there?”

Luffy hums, an offbeat repetition of Brook’s death song, and closes his eyes.

“I hope the sea is waiting for me, then.” Brook’s captain says hopefully, as if each word and implication is not another nail in Brook’s coffin. “That would be nice.”

(Brook met Luffy when no flowers stained his lips and excitement urged him onward. Ten minutes later, with the finest meal Brook had ever eaten, his captain had broken off to exhale eight mossy rosebuds from his throat.

Luffy loves, endlessly, yet the one endless horizon for a pirate hates _him._ A tragedy, it is, truly.)

Brook nods and agrees. “It would be nice, captain. A pirates heaven, _yohohoho_!”

Luffy smiles and picks six petals from the back of his mouth, and Brook tries to feel as if the world isn’t tearing itself apart in grief.

(Brook doesn’t know if he truly died, if he truly went to the afterlife. If he did, he would have thought his captain, his first captain, _Yorki,_ would have been waiting for him there. Instead, it was more like a dream than a death.

Brook can’t promise his captain that the sea will ever love him again.

It hurts, far more than it should.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lily - a flower often used at funerals, to symbolize a loved one's return to innocence/heaven, can also mean 'majesty, affection, love, warmth.'
> 
> moss rosebud - meaning 'a confession of love'
> 
> hehehe. hoped you all enjoyed! thank you for reading <33
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	12. american marigolds - luffy and rayleigh

_Two years_ , Rayleigh tells him on that island where everything is bloody, _You have to wait two years._

“Raleigh,” Luffy replies, marigolds sticking to his hands his face his feet his - _(chest, pain, so much pain.)_ “I don’t _have_ two years.”

(He doesn’t. He knows this, that his life has always been an hourglass of ticking time left, and he’s made his peace with it. Iva told him the hormones would take away some of the precious time he had left, and the doctor dude had told him the same. Chopper already scolded him for his Gears, his gears that he used so many times in that _war._

It didn’t matter. Luffy could not regret trying to save -

_Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it-)_

Raleigh looks at him with an apprising eye, and suddenly Luffy remembers Buggy’s words about _flowers_ and _Pirate Kings._

“Then,” Raleigh says, finality in his tone, “Your crew dies at Sabaody.”

And, really, the choice is simple in the end.

(Luffy’s never much cared about his own life, really. He’s always loved others more than he loved himself. He and Ace are were similar, like that.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chap but also now we start jumpin around!
> 
> american marigolds - meaning grief, cruelty, pain, sorrow, a caress. This specific flower is often used in ‘Day of the Dead’ celebrations, as the vibrant color brings spirits home. 
> 
> thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	13. cranberry flowers - law

Law had performed the procedure before, mostly on unwilling victims. It was relatively easy - remove the plants from the lungs and the tendrils of vines that creeped through the blood, then - only capable with the Ope-Ope Fruit, remove what counted as ‘love’ in the human body - or non-human body. It isn’t a visible thing, that last one, but it is part of the powers Law possesses.

Side effects include losing all ability to love, and in some cases, feel emotion.

Now, looking at Monkey D. Luffy, laying down and bleeding out on his Operating Table, Law debates doing the procedure. Straw Hat wouldn’t care, afterwards, any love he had for whatever it was shriveling up, but…

(Law remembers.

Law remembers the way Straw Hat punched a man in a god’s robes and spit up blood on the white fabric afterwards. Remembers the way he did not care, even as he stumbled fighting with Law and Eustass. Remembers the way Straw Hat looked to the sea and didn’t look back, and remembers how _tiny_ Straw Hat is, small and fourteen, the youngest Supernova - and pirate captain, really - by far. )

Straw Hat set sail for a reason.

Law removes the flowers - a brief respite for the young captain, easier to operate with out them for Law - and leaves Luffy’s love alone.

Jimbe shakes him, afterwards, when Straw Hat is unconscious by Jimbe’s side and his breath lets little petals escape.

“Why didn’t you,” Jimbe asks, pained, red on his fingertips from Straw Hat’s wounds. “Why didn’t you save him?”

Law smirks. “I did.”

Jimbe growls. “You know what I mean.”

He hums then, twisting Kikoku in his grasp. “We’re pirates, Jimbe. We love the sea, no matter who we are. If we don’t… if we don’t feel emotion, like joy, or anger, or victory or grief… If we don’t love, then why do we set sail?”

If pirates didn’t love - love the sea, love their dream, love their crew - then why were they pirates?

Jimbe doesn’t get it, but with the way Straw Hat grips his robe even unconscious, he will soon.

At Amazon Lily, Straw Hat does not ask Law to remove the pain - to remove the love he feels for his brother that tears at him -

( _It wasn’t suppose to be him-)_

Or to remove Straw Hat’s love for the ocean, the sea.

Instead, he clings tighter to the unbridled affection in his chest and coughs up bouquets and cranberry flowers and wreaths of roses.

Law clears Straw Hat’s body of flowers once more and leaves Amazon Lily, a smirk lacing his lips as even now, he watches Straw Hat draw nearer and nearer to the water.

(After all - he understands dying for those you loved.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cranberry flowers - hardiness, cure for heartache, often associated with good health
> 
> thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	14. narcissus - sanji and luffy

It’s quiet in the galley at night. The waves are gentle outside, the dim light of the lamp casts a soothing orange over everything, and the most rambunctious of their crew are asleep in their bunks.

Often, it is only Sanji in the kitchen at night, finishing up meal prep for tomorrow and smoking away his troubles.

Not tonight.

Tonight, as Sanji finishes putting away pots and pans from this nights dinner, barefoot feet pad their way into the kitchen, soft and simple.

There’s only one person who walks like that - is that light, with that lack of grace, and walks barefoot on Merry’s splintering boards. 

“Luffy,” Sanji sighs, putting the dish he was holding down. “No more meat. Rationing - do you know that word? Rationing?”

But Luffy isn’t yelling. Instead, he slumps into the space between Sanji’s shoulder blades, barely evenreaching, and wraps his arms around Sanji. His head shakes a _no_ into Sanji’s back as Sanji carefully freezes, and Sanji suddenly realizes what this is about.

“Luffy?” He asks, softer. “Are you okay?”

Another shake of the head, and Sanji turns around, to capture Luffy in his own arms.

His hat isn’t on, instead resting behind his back, and Sanji is careful to avoid hitting it as he pulls Luffy closer.

A moment more passes, Luffy sinking into Sanji’s arms.

(No red stains his dress shirt, so Sanji takes it as a good sign.)

“…Luffy?” Sanji prompts again, carefully when there is no response.

Luffy hums and mutters something Sanji can’t quite hear, before he finally lifts his head out of Sanji’s shirt. “Chopper said to go to you if I feel to dizzy.”

Ah. He was right.

(Chopper is their newest member, the youngest after Luffy, yet he’s the only one of them who can do _anything_ about the death growing in Luffy’s lungs. And even then it isn’t much. For Hanahaki, the treatments are removal via Ope Ope fruit, requited love or - only working to hold it off - keeping away the source of hate. For a pirate, it’s all impossible.

Chopper tries anyway, and Luffy _listens_ to him. Sanji and Chopper collaborate on meals, the crew makes Luffy rest, everyone making sure that Luffy will live just one more hour.

Sanji’s part is food.)

“Alright. Go sit down, I’ll bring something over.”

Luffy nods again, reluctant to leave Sanji’s warmth but pulling away, and goes to slouch at the table.

Sanji turns and laments his clean kitchen for only a second before getting out the things he needs for a quick meal.

In five minutes of quick yet careful preparation, Sanji is done. He sets a meal down before Luffy, meat that should have been rationed and a glass or two of orange juice, and nods at his captain. Something to refresh him, give him precious vitamins and minerals that his body loses each time he coughs, something to get rid of the dizziness and lightheadedness, something to help calm his captain.

Luffy wastes no time in devouring the meal, and it is then, looking at him, that Sanji realizes his captain is the most selfish person Sanji has ever met.

He scarfs down meal after meal, offers his endless love to his friends, protects them, saves his crew, and is the best captain Sanji could ask for. Yet, in the same breath, Luffy is fourteen and without his entire life ahead of him.

Luffy takes - hearts and souls and dreams - and offers only bloody smiles and flowers in return.

It _hurts_ that Luffy doesn’t seem to take care of himself except in quiet moments like this.

Sanji thinks back to the island before, where Luffy climbed up a mountain and ground his fingers and toes down to the bone, while Sanji was as useless as a sack of bricks. Where Luffy defeated a tyrant as the cold stole breath away from him, and hacked up cherry blossoms as he made them fall from the sky.

Luffy came away bloody and red and hurt. Another injury that he brushed off, another smile laced with pain that he didn’t acknowledge.Another wound that could have _killed_ their already dying captain.

And Luffy doesn’t _care_ \- doesn’t care that with every breath of sea air, every dip in the ocean, every cough and every battle, he’s throwing a bit of his life away, bit by bit. Soon, their captain is going to die because of his own selfish love, and there is nothing Sanji can do about.

Luffy, selfishly selfless.

He always was confusing.

Yet - as Luffy leans into Sanji’s side, meal finished, humming happily, Sanji cannot blame him.

Luffy said he wanted to be Pirate King, and Sanji knows he will be, that Luffy will steal that dream for himself and his crew, and every other hopeful king will simply have to let their dream die.

A selfish dream at his center.

(King or dead, and Sanji won’t believe there’s any other option than _King.)_

Being selfish is just who Luffy _is._

“Hey, better now?” Sanji says, lowly, to the boy leaning into his side. “Less dizzy?”

Luffy nods, sleepily. “And the headache is gone too.”

He hadn’t mentioned that before. Sanji makes a note to tell Chopper in the back of his mind.

Sanji hums again. “Good.” He moves to get up, to clean up his kitchen again, but arms around his waist stop him from moving far.

 _“Luffy- I need to clean up!”_ He growls, but when he turns Luffy is fast asleep, snoring already without any blood lining his lips.

Sanji sighs, and slips back into his seat beside his captain, accepting his fate as pillow for the night.

 _Where’s the moss head when you need him,_ he thinks, brushing hair out of Luffy’s face and moving his hat to the side, _he’s the usual napping partner - only thing he’s good for, really._ He snorts at his own joke before lighting cigarette.

Smoke plumes into the air as Sanji lets his eyes fall shut. Luffy is a familiar comfort, wrapped around him and head slipping to Sanji’s lap, and sleep pulls heavy at Sanji’s limbs. When Luffy coughs, twice, Sanji rubs his back in comfort, ignoring the petals covering his shoes. Soon…

Soon Sanji snuffs out his smoke and falls into oblivion as well, dreaming of a day when Luffy is a king without blood on his lips.

(When Sanji wakes, Luffy is still there, quiet and asleep. Blood lines his lips and the bandages around his fingers have come loose in the night, but there’s a smile on Luffy’s face.

Sanji picks narcissus blossoms and laurestines off of his clothes shakes his head.

“Selfish bastard,” he says, smiling, and does not allow himself to think of death.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> narcissus - named after the greek myth narcissus, means 'selfishness, self-love, egotism, stay as sweet as you are'
> 
> laurestine - small white flowers 'i die if neglected, delicate attentions'.
> 
> sorry for shorter a/ns school is picking up and im just so very tired guys fhgjkh
> 
> hope you enjoyed! this was one of my favorite chapters! thank you for reading!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	15. helenium - sabo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! quick note: the chapter count has changed. it currently is just a placehold number for all the current drabbles i have, but i am now changing it from 15 to 20. series won't end at 20 tho, then ill update it again. i just know i want to actually finish this series at somepoint, so im giving it an actual chapter count!
> 
> the chapter count will be the number of prewritten chapters i have! thank you!

“We had though he would die first,” Sabo says to the quiet. “Luffy, I mean.”

He doesn’t have to specify who _We_ is. By the way Sabo’s eyes trail along the x on Luffy’s chest, the rest of the crew, squashed in this small, Dressrossan building, know _exactly_ who we is.

“Ace was stupid about life, but he wasn’t actively dying or trying to die at least. He would live until he found answers. And I… well I didn’t have any reason to die, and I had my dream and people I wanted to spite. We always thought it would be Luffy.”

Luffy, the crybaby. Luffy, the littlest brother. Luffy, the weakling.

Luffy, with flowers growing inside his chest who choked on heleniums when Sabo first met him. Luffy, who breathed in sea air and breathed out flowers. Luffy, who loved so much it hurt.

Sabo tilts his head back then, conscious of all the eyes around him. Each Straw Hat stares at him pensively, so much older than him, most of them, but still learning.

They all loved his baby brother though. Sabo was thankful.

“Funny,” Sabo’s voice catches oddly. “How Luffy is the only one who _didn’t.”_

A part of Sabo died in that fire. To Luffy and Ace, he really was dead.

And Ace…

(There’s fire and magma and hell. Sabo swallows the fruit, the will of his brother, and knows that it is only possible because his beloved brother who he never got to see free is six feet under the ground and cold.)

Ace is dead.

“He’s always been surprising like that.”

Luffy lives without regrets. He has to, if he wants to achieve his dream.

Sabo has two regrets, and is glad he has a new dream now.

Zoro, in the corner, nods in agreement as the rest of the crew chuckle. They don’t seem alarmed at Sabo’s shaky words, or the way he’s slowly carding a hand through Luffy’s hair, when only an hour ago he had crushed skulls with it.

Stupid, the rest of the world would call the Straw Hats.

Knowing, Sabo calls them, because they understand death just like he does, and they understand Luffy.

Luffy coughs then, briefly. Flowers and blood spill past his lips, so much more than he did before, seven and fresh flowers in his lungs.

Sabo hesitates. His crew doesn’t.

Usopp tilts Luffy onto his side with just one hand, a hand sprouts to rub circles into Luffy’s back, and Trafalgar Law mutters a quick _room_ and suddenly flowers fall in the trash can beside the bed.

Familiar motions, each one laden with care.

“He won’t die.” Zoro says from the wall, the ever faithful first mate. “We won’t let him.”

Ace had promised Luffy he wouldn’t die.

Sabo doesn’t think this is any different.

And yet…

He looks around at this crew, who look at their captain, younger than all of them by at least three years, with nothing but devotion and love and loyalty, and thinks maybe… maybe he can place some trust in them.

Just a little.

“A kid like him makes a big brother worry. Take care of him for me, okay?”

The Straw Hats nod, his brother shifts in his bed, and Sabo leaves, ignoring the flowers stuck on his coat.

Luffy won’t die. His crew wouldn’t let him, after how many times he made _them_ live.

Hopefully - hopefully it’s enough.

(King or dead, as they say. King or dead.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helenium - also called sneezeweed. means 'tears', often flame colored, or in colors of red, orange, or yellow. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed! also im switching to every other day updates because guys im so tired updating every night hard
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
> -
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	16. asphodel - merry

Merry is a ship, and so Merry is faithful. She loves her crew, loves the waves, and loves the way her helm is always facing the horizon. She is a _Straw Hat,_ and she will never abandoned her crew by choice.

She has no choice now, when her planks are breaking and her hull is shattering, when destruction takes her away bit by bit. Her spirit is strong - no Straw Hat would ever falter - but her body is weak.

Her captain, young, bloody, and _hers,_ makes the right decision.

She’s glad, at first. No matter how bad she wants to, she can’t carry them forward. She is only a lamb, meant for paradise and gentle waters.

The waves whisper about lightning islands and sea kings who swallow flightless ships, and Merry knows she cannot compete and keep her crew safe.

Her captain makes the right decision to leave her behind at Water 7.

No one likes it.

(Merry is a lamb, and lambs are made for blood. Her figurehead, her captain’s beloved special seat, is stained with red from when her captain sits there so peacefully. Last night, when he sat and made this decision, he was there with her.

Blood drips down Merry’s face along with white windflower petals. They feel like tears, somehow, and Merry knows it will never come out of her wooden skin.)

Her captain is breaking on the inside. Everyone is.

Yet Usopp - her beloved Usopp, who cares for her so much, who was the first to paint her sails and sit on her deck to embrace the sun, who stuck with her and encourages her and loves her - Usopp, is _angry._

(He’s not brave, not yet, and so he hides. Merry wishes she could make him believe that he’s brave enough to face this, that he’s strong, that he’s needed.

It wouldn’t do anything. He needs to learn for himself.

Their captain would never abandon him.)

He lashes out. Luffy lashes back. Both of them cough, cough into the bloody ground of her galley, and Usopp _leaves._

( _Luffy, you’re going to be the Pirate King, right?_ Usopp said, blood dripping from his lips like a poor mimicry of Luffy, _I don’t have any high ambitions for myself! Looking back, when I first set out to sea, you guys just invited me on your ship! That’s our only connection! There’s no sense in traveling together when we have completely different views!_

He was hurtful. Wrong. Merry knew he wanted to be a brave warrior of the sea. But then -

_I’m not here to die like you are Luffy! This sea’s not going to be my grave! I’m too cowardly for that! I’m quitting this crew._

The truth _hurt.)_

There’s a battle in two hours. Her captain lies in her hull, coughing up asphodels in his hammock. He knows the truth that Merry knows, but that just means its too _late._

The rest of her crew breaks. Merry breaks. Her captain breaks.

She _hates_ this.

But she can’t stop it. She can only cry.

-

Usopp does not hesitate when the battles comes. Merry knew he wouldn’t. Usopp is _smart,_ and knows Luffy is stronger than him in terms of strength.

He turns to tricks, dirty tricks, tricks fit for a pirate. Smoke and eggs and _fire._ Things that cut even Luffy. Then, dangerously, things that Luffy breathes in and can’t breathe out, pepper spray and cases, things that make flowers choke out of Luffy’s throat, even in the middle of a fight.

(The one thing that would bring him down.)

Luffy lands just one blow, in the end, but it's enough.

It’s over.

The outcome everyone knew was coming.

(Merry cries as Luffy slumps to his knees, cries as blood covers the ground, cries as Luffy limps his way back to the ship and barely breathes out _it’s heavy -_ barely breathes at all. Her crew leaves her that night, never to return, and all thats left of her captain is the flowers around her flag and the blood on her floor boards.

Her captain made the right decision. She just wished it didn’t turn out like _this.)_

Asphodels and windflowers wisp from her deck in the night air and as Usopp’s tears fall to her deck, Merry knows she has abandoned her crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asophodel: 'my regrets follow you to the grave' often said to be an immortal flower in the Elysian fields of Greek Mythology. also called a king's spear.
> 
> windflowers: 'abandonment, frailty, sincerity, symbol of love' also called an anemone. 
> 
> me: posts fluffy asl fic. 
> 
> pauses. 
> 
> posts sad hanahaki fic
> 
> hehehehe
> 
> anyway i hope you enjoyed! thank you for reading <333!
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	17. flower crown - usopp

Usopp is the first to do it, surprisingly. Or maybe, its unsurprising given his knack for creativity. He’s on deck, taking up flower brushing duty that day, sweeping off piles of petals that find their ways into the corner of Merry’s cracks, when he stumbles upon an idea.

The petals are cleaner, cleaner than usual, signifying a good day for their captain. Less blood and more petals was always good. (It’d be better if there were none, but Luffy was impossible like that.)

This means, however, that Usopp can _do_ things with them, without dark thoughts creeping in.

Usopp abandons his broom and sits down before a pile, ready to weave.

-

It is an hour later when he figures out how to make a crown without long stems to braid with. He used to do this before, with Kaya on hillsides on better days, but those were only with daisies. 

Now, he weaves crowns of celandines and cosmos’s, cowslips and hyacinths, jasmines and azaleas and bougainvilleas. His captain was happy today, and as Usopp hums beneath his breath, hands working at a steady pace over the quiet of the sea, he is happy too.

With a final twist of a petal, a flower crown emerges of happy yellow and pinks and whites, with only a little bit of dried red at the edges. It’s good, for a first try.

Usopp puts it on his head, tentatively, and looks in the mirror he has stored in his bag for blinding attacks.

It settles gently over his head, ruffled by the breeze but not blowing away, and Usopp is _proud._ A flower crown, fit for a king.

Usopp eyes flit to where Luffy is sitting on the figure head, and knows who’s head will next be crowned with flowers.

Alas, he has no more flowers right now.

Maybe there are some -

“Looking for more?”

“AH” Usopp startles at the voice, whipping around. “Nami! Robin!”

There she is, their navigator taking a break from the helm and holding a pile of flowers - some bloody, and some not. Next to her, Robin holds more, as well with a bowl of water, red drifting through it and dried petals in several more of her hands.

“Fufufufu!” Robin chuckles, her eyes lighting up as Usopp settles back down. “We thought we could lend a hand to your endeavors, Longnose.” A hand pops up to adjust the crown on Usopp’s head, and something in his shoulders relaxes at that.

He smiles, sitting back down and gesturing for the others to do so. They have flower crowns to weave before their Captain turns from that endless horizon, and Usopp knows he’ll want everyone to have one.

(Their captain is selfish like that, coughing up blood and flowers to share with his crew. Its an odd kind of selfish, but Usopp loves him anyway.)

-

Zoro drifts over at some point, nodding to them then going to sleep by the figurehead, the ever watchful first mate. Sanji appears with snacks and hands able to weave flowers faster than the rest of them once Usopp shows him how. Chopper weaves celandines and cosmos’s and roses with a surgeons precision, and soon, each of them is wearing a flower crown adorned with small bits of blood on their heads.

“A bit morbid,” Chuckles Robin, but there is glee on her face, softly hidden, as she accepts a pink and purple blossoming crown. “Our captain, giving us his blood to wear…”

“Robinnnn,” Whines Chopper next to her, pulling at her pant legs. “I washed them he best I could! Petals tear very easily!”

Sanji places a hand on his head, patting it twice. “And you did good, Chopper. There’s a lot less than when we started.”

“You Bastard! That doesn’t make me happy!”

But he’s right. The flowers float gently in their hair, even stained with remnants of blood they are _beautiful,_ and the puddles Luffy chokes up aren’t there, not anymore.

Everyone has a smile on their face, and Usopp is _proud_ of what he made out of this death omen.

Now, all that’s left is to give one to Luffy.

A crown, fit for a king. One created wholly by him, shaped by his friend’s hands. Usopp thinks he would be more excited by the poeticness of it if he’d thought Luffy would have cared.

His captain has time for action and stories and world-turning phrases. Not some poetry Usopp doesn’t care about.

Besides - this crown, laden with every flower near perfect condition they could find, clean and beautiful, fit to the brim and wide enough to fit around Luffy’s hat like a true crown - is _perfect._

And -

“SHIT!” Zoro cries from the bow, and then there is splashing and coughing and calling before their captain is pulled up on deck.

 _30 seconds_ , Usopp thinks, belatedly, as Luffy is wrapped in towels and scolded with a single glare by a soaking wet Zoro. _Faster save time than before. Good._

It doesn’t take long for Luffy to start coughing, Zoro rubbing gentle circles on his back as buttercups fall to the deck. But, it also doesn’t take long for him to look up, coughing fit over, and see his _crew,_ and their lovely, lovely crowns made by their captain’s blood.

Luffy’s eyes grow wide and there is _joy_ there, unmistakeable joy as he laughs. “Shishishi! You guys look great! Can I have one?”

He doesn’t even finish his question before Zoro pushes his hat over his eyes and Nami places the crown on Luffy’s hat.

“Of course, captain,” she says, smiling, terribly fond of this brat, and Usopp wonders if his voice gets like that when he talks to Luffy sometimes.

Luffy laughs, again, pushing his hat up and looking at all of them with such love it _hurts._ He doesn’t even look at the crown, trusting his crew made it beautiful for him, and turns to the pile of flowers they still have left, lying on the ground, and the ones he just coughed up.

“I want to make one too!” He says, and it’s not and order but his crew treats it as one. “For Merry!”

“Aye, Captain!” They chorus, settling down around him. Merry deserves one, their beloved lamb ship.

She’ll look beautiful decorated in blossoms instead of blood, Usopp thinks.

Together, their crew cleans and weaves and shapes flowers into a crown big enough for their ship, some hands helping (everyone besides -) and others not (Zoro (sleeping,) and Luffy (Luffy.)). There is laughter and cheer, even when Luffy breaks to cough and slumps into Usopp’s side for the briefest of moments. They have dinner, out there, weaving a crown of flowers, before she is _finally_ finished.

Beautiful, bloody, and a crown fit for a king.

When Luffy does the honors of placing it on Merry’s head, a king crowning a lamb, Usopp knows Merry is the prettiest ship of them all.

(Later that night, when Luffy is slumped into Usopp’s side during the night watch Luffy interrupted, Usopp learns a secret.

“My brothers and I used to make flower crowns,” Luffy mumbles, uncharacteristically quiet and half asleep. “Makino showed us how.”

“Yeah?” Usopp prompts as he adjusts the blanket covering them. _Brothers?_ Usopp only knew Ace but… he didn’t know Ace till he saved all their asses. It’s no wonder Luffy would have more, terrifying, family.

“Mmhm. It was nice. Thanks for doing it again… Usopp… You’re the.. best..” Luffy’s words slur before dropping off entirely, a smile still on his face as he huddles up next to Usopp.

The flower crown is still on his hat, and Usopp adjusts it a little, ever so slightly.

“You’re welcome, Captain.” He says, dropping his head to rest atop Luffy’s. “You’re welcome.”

He doesn’t whisper to Luffy that he’d follow him to the ends of the Earth if he could, if he wasn’t such a coward, but he thinks Luffy knows that anyway.

His captain is great like that.

Always.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> celandine - joys to come, future joy  
> cosmos - joy in love and life  
> cowslips - early joys, winning grace  
> hyacinth (red) - playful joy  
> cape jasmine - i'm too happy, transport of joy  
> azalea - fragile and ephemeral passion, take care, romance,  
> bougainvilleas - passion
> 
> this is all just before water 7 :((((
> 
> thank you for reading! Also, to the comments with corrections/suggestions + questions in them - i see you! will be responding as soon as i have more than five minutes to spare! sorry for the wait ^^;;;
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed! thank you! theres I think... two? or one more water 7 vibe ones left that i have already written, but ill see if ill shake those up with other characters! anyway, yeah
> 
> thank you for reading!
> 
> \- whirly 
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	18. dianthus - hancock

Hancock loves Luffy, with the love of a hurricane, a tyrant, an empress. Its indisputable, undeniable, passionate and bright and _there._

Luffy says he doesn’t love her back, doesn’t turn to stone when he looks at her beauty and doesn’t falter when she looks at _him._

 _Yet -_ no flowers bloom in Hancock’s lungs. No vines choke her throat and no dianthuses grip her chest in sickness.

She is beautiful, unbloodied, and perfect still.

She loves Luffy entirely and completely, and she has no hanahaki, unlike her love.

This means, of course, that Luffy loves her back, doesn’t it?

This is what Hancock tells herself when Luffy is bandaged and weeping and flowering before her, and what she tells herself when Luffy isn’t stone or falling at her feet.

 _Love,_ she thinks, _he loves me!_

Granny Nyon shakes her head as Hancock fawns over Luffy who is choking on meat and blossoms before her.

Stupid girl, stupid empress who didn’t understand her own emotions.

The feeling was not love. The feeling was friendship, but Hancock had never experienced it before, and jumped to the only obvious conclusion.

Romantic Love.

_Sigh._

(Luffy loves Hancock, just as completely as she loves him, in the way that he loves all his friends and the ocean itself. Luffy knows friendship.This is friendship - the way Hancock went to Impel Down and the way Hancock rubbed his back when he choked on Lilies and the way she went to war for him. It’s what he would do, for anyone of his friends, his crew, his family.

So of _course,_ its friendship. What else could it be?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dianthus/pinks: pure love, pure affection, boldness, lively and pure, 
> 
> okay so i wasnt suppose to not update this long because like everythinng is written?? just not updated. annyway! a break between angst then straight back into it in the next chap!
> 
> (reason why i stopped updating much is because i have posted many other projects recently, such as the latest sea of monsters chapter, some oneshots, and a sea of monsters drabble series for halloween! if you have the time, thats why lmaooo)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)
> 
> (ALSO I SEE EVERYONES COMMENTS I AM SLOWLY WORKING ON RESPONDING BUT THANK YOU ALL SO FUCKING MUCH ILY ALL!)


	19. fruit - garp

At Water 7, Garp holds his grandson close and very carefully does not cry.

Luffy is _here,_ smaller than Garp remembers, bloody and bandaged, but he is _alive._

When Garp heard that his grandson set out to sea, he had expected to find Luffy buried under immortal flowers, a death at sea grown in petals.

Luffy was supposed to be safe at dawn, damnit.

Instead, his grandson is a _pirate_ who has just successfully declared war on the world government and razed Enies Lobby to the ground.

Luffy coughs in his hold, from where Garp has him held tight against his chest, and little petals flutter out, staining the white of his uniform red.

He doesn’t drop Luffy. He’s used to this - ever since Luffy ate that _blasted_ fruit, blood is as commonplace as the scent of flowers in the air, now.

Where was he, in this conversation?

Ah. Right.

“FIST OF LOVE!” And his grandson goes crashing to the floor, choking out roses in his path.

“AGH! WHAT THE FUCK, GRAMPS!” Luffy yells, holding his head. Garp smirks at the way the pirates in the room tense, each of them going for their weapons, even the weakest among them. Luffy picked out a good crew. But they can’t save him from this.

(No one could save Luffy, really. Garp tried. Ace tried. Sabo tried. Dadan and the bandits and Makino tried. They all failed. Luffy just loved too fiercely.

 _That’s the D in him_ , Garp thinks sometimes. Even at fourteen Luffy is too stubborn for his own good.)

“I TRAINED YOU TO BE A MARINE!”

“AND I ALWAYS TOLD YOU I WAS GONNA BE A PIRATE!”

“YOU WERE SUPPOSE TO STAY ON DAWN, YOU FOOL. AWAY FROM THE SEA!”

“NEVER!”

Garp does not let the tears fall. Luffy was supposed to be in the mountains, away from all this water, away from death in liquid form, letting his love fade and drift away, so that he had a chance to _live._

Instead, his grandson invites death with open arms and enjoys his life out at sea, dying with every choking breath.

“THIS IS ALL THAT DAMN RED-HAIRED BASTARD’S FAULT ISN’T IT! HIM AT THAT SHITTY FRUIT!”

“SHANKS SAVED MY LIFE!” Luffy lashes back at him, blood on his lips contorting his face into a red snarl. Garp has never seen him so pissed. His voice cracks as he continues. “DON’T YOU DARE TALK SHIT ABOUT HIM!”

“HE’S KILLED YOU LUFFY!” And Garp _knows_ everyone is watching this family spat but since when has he cared about that. There are flowers in Luffy’s wanted poster, and blood on his teeth. Everyone knows anyway. “IF YOU HADN’T EATEN THAT DAMN FRUIT THAT HE BROUGHT - “

“THEN I’D STILL BE HERE!” Luffy pulls on his hat and stands _tall,_ though he is the shortest person in the room by far. His voice drops. “I’m the man who’s going to be King of the Pirates, Gramps.”

Garp knows.

He _knows._

But all he has ever wanted is for his grandsons to be _safe._

As Luffy chokes on flowers and Ace goes missing in Whitebeard territory halfway cross the world, Garp knows everything he has raised is born into death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fruit: given, it means a sign of good health, good fortune, life, and renewal. Taking a fruit however, such as an apple in several myths, is often a sign of sin. 
> 
> (of loving something you were never suppose to love.)
> 
> Anyway - thank you to everyone who has ever read this fic, and ever taken the time to comment, or kudos, or just think about it during their day. Skimming comments today as I rushed between classes was a gift, and I was just like!! today i want to give a shout out to everyone who evenn reads this message. love yall!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	20. begonias - ruskaina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter will probably get an update later but i wanted to at the very least publish something while i had like five minutes of a free night. i think this hits pretty hard already tho :D

Ruskaina… Ruskaina _hurts._

No matter how Rayleigh steadies him, no matter how much stronger he got, no matter how much joy he found with the animals -

The island - the two years - terrifies Luffy more than anything else.

He _chokes_ so often on this island. In his sleep, by the water, in training, in quiet moments. So much more than before.

His chest hurts. Inside and out. Rayleigh has to stop him from scratching at his chest sometimes, trying to get the flowers out, trying to get the pain out, trying to burn and bloody his grief like his love did to him.

There are moments, when he is sitting alone, that he thinks he will he die on this island, far more than anywhere else.

_What do you have left?_ Jimbe had asked him, and Luffy counted nine people who weren’t on this island, and a tenth who was held deep in his heart.

Luffy coughs, again, begonias and loneliness dripping out as he stares at the horizon.

Two more years.

He just has to survive two more years.

(Impel Down ripped from him ten. His gears rip from him ten more with every use gone too far.

His love, more than anything, is the last blow.

All that stands between him and the soft embrace of death is his own stubborn pride.)

He must _survive_ because the reason he set out at fourteen was so he didn’t have to die alone.

Luffy doesn’t want to die on Ruskaina.

(It _terrifies_ him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> begonias: fear, dark thoughts, warnings, misfortune
> 
> school has been kicking my ass lately, so ive had so little time to write and reply but thank you all for your support for this story: it means the absolute WORLD to me !!! <3333
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	21. yarrow - whitebeard

When Whitebeard sees a boy clothed in blood fall from the sky at Marineford his first thought is -

_Where is this boy’s father?_

His second thought, as the boy hits the ground with a crash of bloody blossoms and gore is - _I want to be his father._

He’s always had a penchant for sweeping up young angry men in his arms. It’s what he tried to do for Ace. What he wanted to do, before the marines _stole_ him. This boy, falling from the sky, with rage and fury in his veins, is the angriest child Whitebeard has ever seen.

His third thought, as the boy turns to look at him is, _who could ever dare shelter this storm._

This boy does not want a father. He does not need one, even as he stands so _small_ next to Whitebeard, so thin and brittle and _shaking._

There’s fury in his eyes and war on his lips in white yarrow flowers as _Monkey D. Luffy_ tells Whitebeard a truth that rattles the earth.

_“MY NAME IS MONKEY D. LUFFY - AND IM THE MAN WHO WILL BE KING OF THE PIRATES!”_

A breath - a single flower slipping from the lips, so spattered in blood that Whitebeard could not name its color if he tried - and a continuation.

"AND IM GOING TO SAVE _ACE!”_

Whitebeard is so _happy_ that his not-quite-son has a brother such as this.

(Even as Whitebeard is dying.

Even as Ace is dying.

Even as _Luffy_ is dying.

After all, Whitebeard knows kings. They love things impossibly, like the wind loves the sea and the sun loves the moon.

Luffy will always love Ace.

Even if it kills him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _yarrow - a small white flower, often used in traditional medicine's for wounds. It can mean 'war' or 'to cure' or 'a cure for the heart ache.' It's genus, **Achillea** , comes from the Greek Hero Achilles who carried it into battle for his wounds. Note that Achilles' closest companion, Patroclus, died in his steed during battle. Other names for yarrow include 'soldier' and 'death flower'_
> 
> ....
> 
> this one had a lot of unexpected meaning.
> 
> ALSO GUESS WHAT!!! sarah wrote something in this au!  
> [check it out!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27056710/chapters/67282222)
> 
> please also go check out the links at this fic that say inspired by! Tsu's poems and Lena013's translations and fic are amazing!!!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	22. graveside flowers - mihawk

Mihawk saw the boy choke on saltwater and blossoms before, on a restaurant at the sea. It is an entirely different experience to see him choke on blood and thorns in the middle of a war.

He wonders, sometimes, if Shanks’ bet will live to see the throne he claims.

(When Shanks is drunk on his shoulder, mumbling about little boys and deadly fruits, _my faults,_ and _wish I didn’t's,_ he doesn’t think he will.)

Monkey D. Luffy is young and dying, a supernova burning out in a series of fleeting moments.

Yet –

He is powerful, earning the loyalty of a thousand men who will be dead come sundown and of men more powerful than Luffy will ever live to be. Dangerous, the ability to sway the tides when the ocean hates your soul. Deadly, the ability to draw dying men to the side of a dying boy.

(Children of the sea do not go down easy – they will fight, and when they rally like a tsunami… Smart souls know to stay out of the way.)

Mihawk is intrigued even as he aims to cut Straw Hat down. It’s a perfect hit, arcing through the air, and only the stronger folks would be able to -

Ah.

A dodge.

The boy _dodged_ it. Had he unlocked observation haki?

There’s coughing ringing out from the battlefield.

Ah.

(So many surprising observations from this tiny, tiny child.)

He didn’t. He had only _stumbled_ from the flowers that tore him apart from the inside, the love that killed him daily.

Mihawk does not take another chance.

(He does not wish to challenge the sea.)

He will leave Shanks’s bet to his own fate, and leave flowers at the grave when the time comes.

(Luffy stumbles across the battlefield, his path clear by the petals in his wake. His fingers are cut by the many times he has fallen, and there is more blood on him from his chest than the sailors he has cast away and killed.

He breathes in smoke and debris and ash, and breath out petals and thorns, and vines. Every breath is choked yet still - _still_ Mihawk hears him cry out in a wave of conqueror’s will.

_ACE! YOU’RE THE ONLY BROTHER I HAVE LEFT!_

An impossibility, Straw Hat is. Perhaps there will be no grave flowers after all.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Graveside flowers: The tradition of placing flowers on graves is said to have originated with the Ancient Greeks, who placed them on the graves of warriors. If the flowers took root, it is said the dead warrior found peace at last._
> 
> HEY EVERYONE. GUESS WHAT. THE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING TIMMIE (themysteriousinternetentity )HAS CREATED A PODFIC FOR THIS FIC!!!!!! It should be linked at the bottom chapter or at the end of this fic, depending on when you are reading this!! GO GIVE IT A LISTEN. IT KILLED ME. I AM DEAD. DECEASED. GONE!!!!! AAAAAAA!!! 
> 
> Also a reminder to check out the other links there too, because anybody who does anything for this au is just. so amazingly talented! ily all
> 
> Anyway! Not my favorite chapter but soon we will have some out that i actually like so!!!! :DDDDD 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	23. plum tree blossoms - luffy

At Marineford, Luffy can’t breathe.

(That’s normal. He usually can’t.)

Every breath is a choke on ash and soot and the screams of the bloody dying, every exhale blossoms and plum tree blossoms and _thorns,_ choking him with the love of a brother requited and a world hated.

It’s not like before.

Before, he choked on victory, on the sweet spray of the sea, his friends nearby to rub his back when it goes on for so long. It _hurts_ but it was a hurt he knows.

Marineford isn’t.

Marineford is _hell._

He keeps _falling,_ Impel Down’s rage sapping at his strength even now, he’s fighting, fighting _fighting_ , and he can’t die here he can’t but it would be so _easy_ just to sleep, just for a second, he’ so tired -

Luffy coughs and falls, dodging a sword strike from the man _his_ swordsman will one day kill, and keeps going.

(He wonders if Zoro’s okay.

He doesn’t think about how Luffy _failed_ him.)

On this Battlefield, when he fell from the sky, the ocean had _tilted_ \- now, Luffy can’t feel her and her hate, only screaming, rushing, powerful rage from everyone around him.

Its so _much_ and his head hurts, and everyone’s so much bigger and stronger than him but he can’t stop because -

_Ace._

Ace his big brother who kicked the sea when he realized who hated Luffy. Ace, his big brother, who would rub his back and ruffle his hair, and give him piggy back rides when Luffy coughed too long. Ace, who with Sabo made him flower crowns out of his curse and gave him his second crown. Ace, his big brother.

Ace, the only brother he has left.

Ace, the only _one_ he has left -

(Between him and the sea and eternal loneliness - )

Ace can’t die.

He can’t.

(But then he does, and Luffy can’t breathe even if he wanted to.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Plum tree blossoms: can mean 'keep your promises,' and 'fidelity.' They can also symbol perseverance, hope and struggle, for how it blooms even against the winter snow._
> 
> _Remember, that Ace had plum tree blossoms crushed beneath his feet in Alabasta._
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	24. spiraea - shanks

The flowers on the Captain’s grave are colorful. Bright. Growing exactly where they shouldn’t.

They are kind of like the Pirate King himself, Shanks notes, as he stands beside the earth and looks at the scaffold towering above it.

No marine had said where the pirate king would be buried - they did it in the middle of the night, so that no pirate would worship his grave.

( _Ha_. As if any pirate valued a dead body. No - what pirates valued, what they worshipped, was the stage of a _king._

The marines had given it to them. The era that Roger created was never getting it _back._ )

Shanks still knew where it was, by the flowers that bloomed.

They buried him where he died, under six feet of concrete, under a meadow of blossoms shrinking up from the cracks.

 _Beautiful_ , some people called it, _an_ _omen_ , others.

 _Tragic_ , the few people who knew the truth behind coughing flowers said.

Shanks knew the truth.

Shanks wasn’t one of the people who thought it was tragic.

Shanks, fifteen and crying, thought it was the greatest thing Roger ever did.

 _(Did you ever achieve your dream?_ Shanks had asked Roger before he left.

 _Not yet,_ Roger had said, dying, as Shanks _sobbed.)_

Roger had always loved different from everyone else - loved the sea, loved the world, loved the people, in a way only a king could, in a way that said _Mine_ in a way that said chaos overrun. He had always dreamed more fiercely than anyone else, asking each person in his beloved crew-

_Do you want to turn the world upside down?_

In his dying breath, Roger did it.

(In his death, the world still didn’t love him back.

But that’s alright.

Roger didn’t need it.)

His grave, covered in spiraeas and osmundas, and a thousand other flowers Shanks never learned the name for, was proof of a that.

(A dream.)

The era, sweeping the world by storm by one man’s words, was proof of that.

(A _dream.)_

Shanks turned from his captain’s, his father’s grave, and, still crying, looked to the world turned upside down that Roger created.

(Twelve years later, rubbing the back of a coughing seven-year-old, Shanks will wonder what era _Luffy_ will create -

And what colors his grave will _bloom.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Spiraea, or Spirea: can symbolize victory, wealth, fortune, or 'I will be waiting for you.'_
> 
> _Osmunda: can symbolize dreams, or reverie. It is also referred to as the royal or flowering fern._
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	25. mandevillas - zoro and luffy

Luffy dies with a smile on his face and flowers on his lips, and all Zoro can think is -

_No -_

_Not yet -_

_He hasn’t-_

(It's been so short, their time together, half of it fighting, the other half cradling Luffy and saying _Breathe_ and another half (because these things come in threes) the best life Zoro has ever lived before. It’s too _short_ , for a kid like Luffy, to short to sail with the king, too short for anything -)

Luffy can’t be dead.

He _can’t be._

But Luffy smiles, and shouts their names and _Sorry_ in the same breath, and he _is._

Lightning crashes down, and perhaps it is mercy that Luffy doesn’t die to the ocean but rather to the sky.

A mercy that Luffy isn’t _killed_ by the thing he loves most in the world.

Flowers explode from the execution stage, a flurry of reds and whites and bloods, pink and yellow mandevillas raining from the sky, and as the storm pours down, Zoro stands still.

His _captain -_ his captain just - _No -_

Something ugly curls inside Zoro’s chest and wreathes outward around the swords clutched in his hands.

_Luffy -_

He wonders why he’s not crying.

Maybe it’s the shock.

(Maybe it’s because Luffy deserves more than sadness for an end they all knew was coming, and never thought he would be mourned. Death, eventual, a fact to the future King.

…

Former, future king.

An oath breaks in Zoro’s chest.)

A cigarette hits the ground next to him, Sanji shaking in the corner of his eye. A pained name escapes his lips, a _Luffy,_ cracked and broken.

He’s dead.

Luffy is -

“Shishishi! I’m alive! Lucky!”

_So fucking dead, Zoro is going to kill him._

Something settles in Zoro’s chest, something like relief and a vow unbroken.

Luffy has always been impossible.

Even in the face of death.

“Do you believe in god?” Sanji asks, next to him, as they run, and Zoro calls him stupid.

Why would he, when it is clear men ( _Luffy-)_ make their own fate?

(Later, when Luffy naps in Zoro’s shadow, finally dry from the rain with blood on his lips from being struck by _lightning,_ Zoro will wonder why he ever thought Luffy would die by anyone’s hand but his own hearts.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Mandevillas - These are pink, white, red or yellow flowers that mean 'You are too bold.' Their etymology literally means 'Great Settlement,' some what represent of a place the world calls the Town of the Beginning and the End. Pink flowers representperfect happiness and kindness, white flowers represent loyalty and yellow represents true friendship._
> 
> Hello everyone my life is a wreck and i have 700 unanswered comments but please know that i love everyone one of you very dearly, and when I posted this first to discord everyone yelled at me. Im so sorry. The chapter count has been updated, because this series isnt over yet! I love you! 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	26. buckbean - robin and luffy

Robin’s captain is small as he lays his head on her shoulder. He’s only fourteen, but sometimes Robin has forgotten that, watching him face off warlords, and gods, and her innermost demons given form.

The glare in his eye and the furrow to his brow, the way of the sea about it - in the midst of battle, short as he is, he never seems anything less than a _legend._

(She loves him for it, and loves all the ways he is not history in the making. He’s _Luffy,_ and there is nothing Robin would change about it.)

He lays his head on her shoulder and it barely has any weight. Still, she adjusts so he can slump into her side, easily coming to rest underneath her shoulder as his hair tickles her chin.

Luffy gives a soft giggle, a _shishishi!_ That for the first time in days is not laden with petals.

It’s a good thing, that after declaring war against the world a few days ago, he is not choking.

Robin adjusts the bandages laden across his body with multiples of the same caring hands, ruffling his hair as she does so to hear another one of those precious laughs.

(Up there, standing on a ledge like a sacrifice to the sea, she had never thought she would hear that laugh again, nor see that smile.

Now, Nico Robin, archeologist of the Straw Hat pirates, will _never_ let it go.)

“Captain,” She hums, relishing in the idea of being a part of this crew again, “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

Luffy shakes his head into her shoulder. “Mmmh. Not tired enough. I’m _boreeeddd.”_

She doubts he wasn’t tired enough. It took most of his energy to even walk across the room to slump into her space, buckbeans trailing in his wake.

The boredom she can see.

“Robin?” He turns his eyes up to her, pleading, “Can you tell me a story?”

She never got to tell stories before she climbed aboard this ship.

“Of course, Captain. What would you like to hear?” A hand blooms behind them, scratching Luffy’s head in soothing circles as a chain of other hands blossoms and brings over heavy blankets to warm her shivering captain.

Luffy doesn’t even take a moment to think, only humming softly. “An adventure one! On the sea!”

It’s funny (it’s not) how all of Luffy’s favorite tales are just their daily lives, without the weight of flowers in his chest.

“Alright then. Would you like to hear the story of _Rouge_ the Sea Shaker?”

A nod, and a teenager half her height, sinking into her side.

And so Robin begins, voice smooth and quiet in the soft noise of their temporary home at Galley La. “In the beginning, before the age of pirates, was an age of Tyrants, when warriors sailed across the sea… Among them was _Rouge,_ sweeping with golden hair and golden sword…”

It is only a minute before Luffy is sleeping by her side, but Robin takes comfort that for once, there are no flowers on his lips, and only a single flower in the hair of a pirate empress long past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buckbeans: also known as Menyanthes or bogbean, this small white flowers means 'quiet' 'calm' or 'repose'. Historically, it has been a cure for insomnia, and often causes drowsiness. 
> 
> alrighty! we're back to it. im posting all of my hanahaki chapters! and boy do we have a lot. thank u all for being patient! school is hell. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	27. common marigolds - usopp and nami

Water 7 is behind them.

Ennies Lobby is behind.

Sunny (not merry - Merry’s _gone)_ is underneath Usopp’s feet, secure and feeling like it could be home by the time their next adventure takes off.

So _why -_

Why does Usopp feel like he’s going to topple overboard at any minute with the way Nami stares at him?

It’s only the both of them on deck, Nami tending to her tangerine trees and Usopp carefully putting together some more stars, when Nami sets a basket of fruit down, heavy, right next to him.

“After you fought,” Nami begins, and Usopp doesn’t even wonder who _you_ is referring to, “Luffy couldn’t stop coughing.”

His heart constricts.

_Luffy -_

“Chopper tried to give him something for it but Luffy wouldn’t accept it. He just - he just sat there, on the roof, and coughed until,” Nami’s voice is choking up, the way it always does when they talk about their fourteen-year-old captain and his love for the sea. “Until he stopped breathing for a moment. There were so many Marigolds Usopp.”

Usopp knows.

He saw them sticking to the underneath of Sanji’s shoes when he kicked the doors of the Sea Train down. He _knows._

“Chopper said it was only partly because of - of y’know.”

 _Usopp_ , telling his captain that he didn’t want to die, that he didn’t want to watch him walk the line between king or dead, that he was a coward, and all those hateful words that came out of his mouth like poison.

He knew. He _knows._

“It was - it was more because of the gases in your stars. All of them.”

That - _that_ gives Usopp a pause and he looks up to Nami, sitting beside him, his eyes wide and hers red but staring firmly at him.

The gases - ?

Oh.

When his mother was sick, the doctors told him to stop playing with the fumes that made up his paint pellets. With Kaya, there was never supposed to be any smoking in the house, nor any bad fires.

Luffy is sick too.

The lungs are fragile things.

“Oh,” He says, dumbly, staring at the stars in his hands. _Oh._

A pause.

“Usopp,” Nami’s voice is sturdier than before when she says his name, calling his eyes back to her. “I love you. You’re part of this crew. And I’m not mad at you - not anymore. I’m just - I’m happy your back but… _Please._ Don’t use the stars with fumes when Luffy’s fighting, okay?”

Nami only ever says please to pretty women or to manipulate people into getting what she wants.

Here, it’s none of those things.

Here, it's Nami begging for a chance at a few more years with the man - with the _teen,_ Luffy’s only _fourteen -_ who took on the world for them.

As if Usopp would say no.

“Of course, Nami. I… I love you too. And I love Luffy,” His eyes water but he doesn’t avoid her gaze. “I don’t want to hurt you all ever again.”

(His captain is going to die one day, out on these waters. Usopp hadn’t lied when he said that in their fight.

He won’t let it be because of him.)

Nami smiles, bright and big, and hugs him tight. “Thanks, Usopp.”

She sweeps the petals that have been blown onto her tangerines away, and offers him one.

He takes it.

“Three hundred Berri please!”

“ _Namiiiii_!”

The ship steadies beneath his feet, and _yeah,_ the Sunny is feeling like home again, with his crew by his side and familiar patterns marking their days with joy.

(That night, Usopp drags Chopper down to Usopp’s Workshop, and asks him to help test the toxicity of the fumes of his new stars.

Water 7 is _never_ going to happen again.

He doesn’t think he could stand it if Luffy coughed up more marigolds for him again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> common marigolds: meaning cruelty, grief, inquietude, contempt, trouble pain, affection, caress and sorrow. Historically and medicinally, it has been used to heal wounds, burns, and small cuts
> 
> just rubs some more salt in water seven wounds, its all okay :)))
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	28. compass flower - nami and luffy

Luffy leans his head on Nami’s shoulder as she draws her maps. He is the only one who has ever dared to do so.

The only one she lets do so.

(Well. She would let Nojiko and Bellemere and Zoro and Robin and Usopp and the rest of her merry crew, but they haven’t asked, so the privilege belongs to Luffy and Luffy alone.

A lot of things do.

The future king is funny like that.)

He barely comes up to her shoulder, standing, and now his head, bare of the hat now resting between his shoulder blades, barely tilts against her matching scar and twisting tangerine tattoo. When he coughs, he’s so careful, in a way he usually isn’t, to make sure blood and compass flowers petals do not fall across the table.

Do not fall across her maps, her _dreams._

(Luffy’s priorities are almost exactly right, then, if not for the fact that he himself should be higher on the list.)

She could not quite name when it started - perhaps after Drum, when Luffy shuddered in his sleep and woke to find company with the crew he almost lost, and found Nami, tired, mapping the island she was almost too sick to see.

Perhaps it continued, with the way Luffy would look at the empty spaces Nami hasn’t filled yet, with something like doubt in his eyes.

Not for Nami, not if she could ever map it - Luffy has faith in his crew and their dreams.

He wouldn’t have picked them otherwise.

No.

This doubt to see if he will _make_ it, to those empty spots in the sea, to the island at the end of it all.

It hurts, sometimes, so Nami draws him in closer and sits him on the side of her tattoo, closest to home, and tells him all about these empty spaces as she writes islands into existence.

_And this, captain, is where New World Rumors say gold is hidden -_

_A Skull island?_ _Cool! We gotta go there!_

_And we will, captain. We will._

Luffy will live to see the sunrise on Raftel, whether he believes he will or not. She promises this, just as steady and as sure as the kid leaning against her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> compass flower: peculiar yellow flowers that follow the suns paths, moving to always face it. Travelers could use these flowers to navigate in the dark. It simply means 'faith' and is said to have been used as a charm against lightning. 
> 
> happy valentines day! i give you pain. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	29. crocuses - crocus

“Breathe in.”

The boy in front of him does.

“Breathe out.”

The boy in front of him barely does, his chest shaking, a cough itching out of his throat. There’s a rattling in there, around his lungs, like something petal-soft blooming at the bottom.

Crocus frowns, lines etching across his face in ways they hadn’t since his captain’s time.

When Shank’s had crossed back over Reverse Mountain, he hadn’t believed it.

 _He said the same thing Roger said!_ Shanks had grinned, chattering to Crocus like he was still an apprentice and not an emperor in the making. _I can’t wait to tell Rayleigh - imagine his face!_

A boy, like their captain? Like the man who looked at the world and decided to turn it upside down as he breathed his last? Like the man who smiled like thunder and fought like the devil? Like the man who valued adventure and his friends over anything else?

Like Roger who- 

_“I want to be - “_

Well.

There really was no describing what Roger’s dream was.

No one else was like him.

(No one else coughed flowers as he fought gods, tyrants, the sea itself. No one else laugh and let the petals fall, let his body weaken as he made one last - not quite desperate - reach for the end.

No one else coughed flowers on the execution stage, and let them fly with the wind like a challenge to the world.)

But Monkey D. Luffy sits on a bench before Crocus with a grin smeared in blood and the sun high behind him, and well -

Crocus can almost believe it.

The kid fought an _island whale._ Crocus can’t remember Roger doing _that._

(The kid smiled as he did it, and painted a straw hat (if poorly) on Laboon’s head, matching his own. Its Roger’s hat, he knows. It makes him smile whenever he looks at Laboon.

The straw hat - always a promise.)

The kid choked as he did it. Crocus _does_ remember Roger doing that.

“No doctors on the crew?” He directs his question to the navigator, who stands idly by their captain as Crocus runs through the checkup they had requested.

The navigator - Nami, he believes her name is - shakes her head. “No. Just me - and I’m not particularly good at medicine either, not for the injuries these idiots get and - well.” She waves her hand at the petals fluttering around the ground, swept up by the sea breeze. “You know.”

He knows.

Crocus turns back to the kid, who’s eyes are chasing after seagulls flying around Laboon rather than the person currently giving him an exam. Crocus bonks him on the head to get his attention. “Hey! Brat!”

Luffy looks over and cocks his head, giggling slightly. “Shishishi! Flower Man!”

Crocus gives him a _look._ “When did you first start having symptoms?”

(He already knows the answer.)

“After I ate my devil fruit!”

(Shanks came back over the Red Line, regret in every feature and hat no longer adorning his head.)

“And when was that?”

(Still…)

“Ah! When I was seven.”

Crocus nods. He’s fourteen then, now. Still young and baby faced, not even old enough to be let into bars. “How often would you say your chest hurts?”

The kid goes quiet and still at that, shifting a glance at his crew who haven’t stopped glancing over like a mother wolf over her young since Crocus started this whole exam. “… Every day.”

“And your throat?”

“I dunno.”

Crocus gives him another _look._ Too bad the kids seems to be the only one unfazed by it and bursts out laughing.

(It’s just another similarity to Roger, who laughed when Crocus glared at him, even as he lay bedridden and sick.)

Nami, thankfully, cuts in. “He gets worse after he falls into the sea and we can’t fish him out right away-“

“Hey!”

“ _Luffy_! Quiet! Anyway - He gets worse then, and after a rough fight. We haven’t had too many storms yet, but I’m guessing them too.” Nami finishes, giving Luffy her own look as he brushes petals from his face.

Luffy is… He’s like Roger, in all the ways that might matter. He seems to be chasing something bigger than himself, with friends and freedom and adventure held before all else. He has a dream and a curse and a smile - but he’s not like Roger.

Crocus knows this as fact, now.

(Roger asked him to leave Laboon. Luffy would never do that.)

(Roger’s illness never fluctuated. Just got worse and worse as his poor reputation soared higher into infamy. Steady and horrible and unable to be cured. Luffy’s is like the tide, like the thing he loves above all else. Always changing.)

It means he can’t do much for him.

Luffy isn’t going to listen to him, so he turns to Nami. “Keep him dry when you can, and keep to liquids after a dip in the ocean. Get your chef to cook foods to help with blood loss, and try to find a doctor when you can.”

Nami nods, serious and stern as Luffy protests that they need to find a _musician_ first.

Crocus will leave them to it. He’s had enough of chasing after musicians and cures for now.

Instead, he watches them leave, watches Luffy laugh and wave and smile like Crocus’s captain did before him. A crown of straw adorns his head and the bright red does well to hide the blood stains. He’s only fourteen, but he’s already managed to put together a crew that will rival any other.

Crocus is oddly proud.

“Heh. That boy…”

(As Luffy’s crew boards his ship, Crocus pulls him away for a moment.

“Kid,” he says, sternly, because this is Shanks’ bet and this kid is _strong._ “You’ve got three years - less if you keep setting out like this.” He’s made these estimates enough time with Roger, even if he fell to the blade in the end. He knows what he’s doing.

Luffy looks up at him, and clutches at his tank. “I know.”

The last pirate to come through here - a Portgas D. Ace - had only been 17. The rookies just keep getting _younger_ but - there’s a desperation in Luffy’s eyes. A knowing. A steadiness in the face of his death.

There’s a pause before Luffy grins brighter and younger than Roger ever had. “But I’m the man who will become King of the Pirates! I can’t stop now!”

Of _course.)_

Luffy sails off, and the flowers in the water hail victory rather than death.

Crocus has always liked crocuses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crocus: a purple and white flower that means cheerfulness, youth, abuse not, impatience, pleasures of hope. Due to its early blooming in difficult areas, it has come to be a sign of hope - spring will always come. 
> 
> i literally would be unstoppable if i could keep to a consistent update schedule but alas im tired and suffering under the weight of school + the dread of the future. anyway. 
> 
> i really liked this chapter. its been one ive been wanting to do for a while!! i hope you enjoyed fghj
> 
> thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly


	30. juniper - luffy

When Luffy was six, he never thought that he would get used to being carried. Being carried was for _little_ kids. Luffy was a _man!_

Then he ate a fruit.

Then he started blooming.

(Then he started _dying.)_

And suddenly, his legs couldn’t hold him up as he doubled over, and Shanks hands never strayed from his back throughout the night, and Luffy was wrapped in arms that seemed to never want to let him go.

(And - honestly? Luffy never wanted to leave. The one embrace he always seeks _hated_ him now, hates him now, and at least Shanks’ was warm and smelled like the sea breeze.)

He got used to the way Shanks would sweep him up into his arms when he came in from port. He got used to the way Makino would hold him when he could barely hold himself, the way she would wipe away the blood on his lips with the edge of her apron. He got used to the way Gramps would carry him across the island, red staining his coat, and how every time Gramps greeted him at the docks he would hug him as if it were his last.

Now, at sea, he is still used to the way people help him stand when he is weak.

(It’s just another thing he needs at sea - he can’t navigate, or cook, or shoot, or cut or _breathe -_ he needs his crew to do that for him. It’s what a crew is anyway. People who _love_ you.)

He learns the cradle of all his crewmates arms, the way that Zoro is strong and lifts him with ease, callouses rough as they brush flowers from his shirt, how they are always there after a battle has Luffy falling on some random deck on the Sunny. He learns the way that Sanji’s hands are softer than Zoro’s even though his arms are almost as strong, how Franky is always able to make metal feel like a pillow just for him, how Chopper always checks his pulse before he lifts and how Robin feels like a hundred hugs at once. He learns the stumbling lift Usopp gives him, as he takes him from the ground, and how Nami will order someone else to do it, but is always the first to pull his head into her lap. He learns the way bone feels like soft flesh when Brook knows he must give comfort to his captain, and the way Sunny carries them to new adventures

(His crew cares.

They care so _much.)_

People carry him, after he coughs to long, and maybe it should have always felt like he was weak but -

Ace had carried him.

And Ace made him feel _strong._

(The first time Luffy had met Ace, Ace had _hated_ him. Then - they became friends. Then - they became _brothers._ And suddenly, Ace outstretched a hand to him, and rubbed his back, and it was a sharing of strength.

Ace would carry him up the mountain, not caring if blood or flowers splattered his skin. Ace would carry him up the treehouse, when he took a dive in the waters and coughed for too long. Ace would be _there_ when no one else was (everyone always _left-),_ and it wasn’t because Luffy was weak, or dying, or not ready for the world.

It was because Luffy was Ace’s little brother.

And Ace was _his.)_

He’ll always remember that.

(His crew carries him because they are _crew._

Luffy is used to being loved like that, now, used to being loved in the sharing of strength and support. _)_

But now -

_Now-_

Luffy is carrying Ace.

Ace is bloody, and slowly losing warmth and oh -

This isn’t strength, not anymore.

This is _death._

Luffy screams, and wishes he was never carried at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Juniper: small, purple flowers that bloom on juniper trees, which are highly flexible. They mean 'protection' 'asylum' and 'succor (support in times of hardship)'
> 
> :))))
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)


	31. hibiscus - makino

Makino used to keep a vase of hibiscuses at the bar. Pretty and pink, they brought _life_ to her little workplace, when the day was slow and it was only her behind the counter.

A gift, from a woman long ago, a woman who Makino had only seen once, tall and beautiful and sorrowful.

 _(“Keep them safe for me,”_ She had told Makino, pressing the flowers into her hand.)

They used to stay on the edge of her counter, never wilting, never drooping, vibrant and constant. Every day, when she first opened the bar, Makino used to brush her fingers over the petals.

They were always soft.

 _Hanahaki_ flowers, Makino knew they were, from their immortality and beauty. They were a rare sight here in the East, but then again, the mysterious woman wasn’t from the East.

(She strolled into the bar to watch the Pirate King _die_ on the Den Den against the wall. Makino’s mother had covered her eyes as the swords plunged into Roger’s heart, but she will never forget the way the woman _gasped_ , as if she herself had been stabbed.

No one who loved the Pirate King was from the _East._ The East was too quiet for that, too ordinary, despite the Pirate King being birthed from his deathbed’s very shores.)

 _A treasure_ , Makino had thought the flowers as.

Luffy liked them too, always reaching for them when he saw them, playing with them, their petals invincible to even his rough child’s hands. Makino braided them into his hair sometimes to match hers, when he went too long without a cut.

(When the woman had stepped into the bar, her freckled face was _framed_ in flowers. They were threaded into her hair, like little declarations of love, pink and passionate, just as shining as her golden locks.

When the Pirate King died, she took them out. She gave all but one to Makino.

 _Keep them safe for me._ She had said, and so Makino did.)

They had always put them back in the end, the bar feeling too empty without the presence of the flowers

 _(And make sure they are able to see the world, alright?_ The woman had asked, sincerely, eyes watering and dripping down onto the flowers. _A bar is a good place for that.)_

They used to always face the bar, hanahaki petals gleaming in a silver vase.

Not anymore.

Now, Makino buries the flowers in her closest as she listens to Luffy _choke_ into his idol’s arms in the guest bedroom next door.

 _Hanahaki,_ she curses, tears rolling down her cheeks, _Why did I ever think it was beautiful?_ ** _Why? WHY!?_**

Luffy had eaten that fruit, that simple, simple fruit sitting right next to the flowers. He had eaten and choked and _cried,_ flowers blooming in his lungs and Makino had never felt so much rage and terror in her life.

The flowers get buried where they can no longer see the sea or the sun or the world, and Makino is breaking a promise but Makino is not a pirate.

Her loved ones mean more to her than some stranger’s _flowers._

(The woman had threaded a flower through her hair as well, and she was kind, and she had led Makino through tide pools and held her hand, and acted more as a mother to her than her own mother did in all of Makino’s eight years.

 _Rouge_ , she had called herself, and tapped Makino’s nose, _but it’s a secret!_

Makino had laughed at the woman with flowers in her hair, who wasn’t much of a stranger at all, and loved her just a little, then.)

She knew Luffy loved the ocean. She _knew_ it.

He would always look out and play in the waters and smile when the sea breeze hit his cheeks.

When he was tinier than now, he would ask _Can we go to the beach today?_ Every day, rain or shine, and always went no matter the danger.

The sea was his own.

And now, the ocean _hated_ him.

 _Hanahaki -_ unrequited love.

Luffy would never stop loving.

Luffy would _die._

Makino trembles there, staring into the dark closet, and _sobs._

(Luffy is not her child. But he clutched her finger like she was a lifeline when he was just a babe, and she was the one to bandage his bruises and scrapes, she was the one to show him the ocean for the first time.

He was her child in every way that counted.)

Luffy was going to _die._

She slams the closet door shut, and does not think about all the immortal flowers that will soon have to be swept out the door of the Party Bar.

She doesn’t.

(Later, Luffy says _I’m going to become King of the Pirates!_ With blood smeared across his lips, and Makino wonders what the Pirate King looked like when he choked up the hibiscuses in her closet.

Because really - who else could love that fiercely, but the man who would be king?)

She brushes the tears out of her eyes, after a minute, and sweeps into Luffy’s temporary room with the force of an avenging angel.

Luffy is there on the bed, held in Shank’s arms, both of them bloodied, and Luffy’s face a grimace of pain. Shanks has an armed wrapped around Luffy, one hand buried into his hair and one rubbing soothing circles into Luffy’s back. He’s murmuring, quiet and soft, as Luffy says _It hurts -_

And Shanks looks at Makino, and her tears are reflected in his.

They sit together, holding a child who loved so fiercely he was hated, and do not think about the future they will not have together.

Luffy is going to _die._

How could she have thought that those flowers were beautiful?

(The woman had left with a single flower in her hair and her face towards the rising sun. A hand rested gentle on her stomach as her freckles danced across her cheeks, feet soft and sure across the sand.

 _Farewell,_ she had said to Makino, and it was the last time Makino had ever saw her. _Thank you._

She had been the most wonderful person Makino had ever met.)

How _could_ she?

-

Luffy disappears to the mountain, and comes back with two brothers and only a few petals stuck to his clothes.

Makino almost cries there, again, because she knows Ace’s face.

She _knows_ it.

 _Portgas D. Ace,_ he says, and Makino trembles. _Luffy’s my little brother!_

She hears _Rouge,_ and _It’s a secret,_ and remembers the way the woman placed her hands on her stomach.

 _Oh,_ Makino thinks, _oh._

That night she digs the flowers out of her closet.

They are still perfect. Still pristine. But as Makino sets them out on the bar again, facing the world, they perk up a little more.

She’s not a pirate. She keeps promises but not all the time.

She feels sad that she broke this one.

-

There are twenty hibiscuses in the jar on the bar counter. Makino gives one to Ace before he sets sail, and tells him, _keep this safe for me,_ so very soft, and _make sure it’s able to see the world, alright? A pirate ship is a good place for that._

There are tears in his eyes as he threads the flower carefully into his hat. He looks happy, Makino thinks, he looks _proud._

He looks like Rouge should have, trodding off into that rising sun, victorious and _free._

That night, Makino threads her own flower into her hair, and awaits the first bounty of _Portgas D. Ace._

_-_

Ace dies.

Ace dies and it _hurts._

Ace dies, and Makino didn’t keep them safe, but he had a flower in his hair as he died, according to the pictures.

There are flowers on his grave.

Ace was loved.

They won’t last long.

She digs herself out of her tears, and as Luffy rings in a new era, she sends a bouquet of hibiscuses to Shanks, for her child’s, _Rouge’s_ child’s grave.

One remains in her hair.

(Just like Rouge.

_Keep this safe for me, and make sure it’s able to see the world, alright? A bar is a good place for that.)_

She brushes it, every day, petals still soft even after almost 20 years, and does not cry.

-

When her child is born, his hands play with the hibiscus stems just like Luffy did.

It makes her smile.

(Her child will always be loved _back.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hibiscus: meaning, delicate beauty, beauty is vain, consumed by love, or fleeting glory. When worn behind the left ear, it symbolizes that the wearer is taken. The pink hibiscus symbolizes all types of love, familiar or romantic, but all hibiscuses are typically short lived. Ironically, this flower if ingested can cause negative effects on pregnant women. 
> 
> if i had a nickel for every time i put my headcanon that rouge watched roger die in the party bar and that rouge knew makino in a fic with flowers in the title i would have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice. no i will not stop. yes i will keep putting this in flower themed fics. [read flowers (still blooming)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23920675). ily. 
> 
> anyway. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAKINO I LOVE YOU
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! <3 
> 
> \- whirly
> 
> [My Tumblr!](https://whirlybirdwhat.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Вдох и кашель](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26336080) by [Lena013](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lena013/pseuds/Lena013)
  * [Inhale and cough](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26428123) by [English is my death (Lena013)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lena013/pseuds/English%20is%20my%20death)
  * [like falling petals, frozen in time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26611837) by [kagehana_tsukio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagehana_tsukio/pseuds/kagehana_tsukio)
  * [[PODFIC] crown the king (with bloody flowers)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692906) by [themysteriousinternetentity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themysteriousinternetentity/pseuds/themysteriousinternetentity)




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